Haunted
by Nicotinex
Summary: Almost one year and a half from Aeris death and Cloud is haunted by her memory, feeling as if it will tear him apart. Will his inner turmoil ever be resolved?


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A/N: not sure about this one, it's unusual for me to even _think_ of writing something FF7 related simply due to the fact that it's a game I haven't played in a long, long time. But, give this one a chance and let me know what you think…

"You left me, you left me alone and scared. I've never felt so alone, cold…it's so cold here…"

"Aeris!" Cloud sat upright in the bed, sweat beads glistening on his forehead as he tried to block out the sound of her haunting voice. _I didn't leave you-you left me! I wouldn't leave you…_His thoughts raged at her, expressions of his anguish that he had tried so hard to hide. His vision was blurred and, with slight anger at himself, he realised his eyes were filled with unshed tears. "Why do you haunt me?" He whispered hoarsely, leaning his aching head in his hands. 

The darkened room was silent, long shadows were cast out from the window where the pale glow of moonlight shone its soft rays through the gaps in the blinds. The other side of his double bed was desolately empty; a mockery to his eyes of a space once filled by Tifa. 

He sighed heavily with regret. Aeris had haunted him for a year after the defeat of Sephiroth, his death being the freeing of her soul. Cloud was sure the dreams he kept experiencing meant something, and it was these very dreams that had finally driven Tifa to leave him four months ago. 

He still remembered the way Aeris had looked, talked, smiled, acted…she affected his life so much now, his every movement self analysed, as if wondering what she would think of him. 

"I need to get a grip." Cloud told himself sternly, as if hoping this voiced command would, in some way, affect his present mood. A soft breeze made the blinds wave gently in agreement and Cloud sighed again, heaving himself out of bed. He pushed the blinds aside and stood, staring silently out the window at the stars that glistened and shone above in the moonlit sky. His thoughts drifted back to the night Tifa and he had sat alone before the defeat of Sephiroth, staring up at this same sky. Back then all he could think of was the pressures that weighed him down, the duties that had been heaped upon his shoulders to protect not only his comrades but also the fate of the world. He had his friends for support though, the people he had grown to trust, the only people he had ever allowed to get close enough to him to become individuals he truly respected and enjoyed the company of. 

But now those days were gone.

Now when he stared up at these stars his thoughts were of Aeris, and the pain he felt was like a physical blow. Even after all this time he couldn't quite think of her as someone he would never see again. In his mind she was not dead, she was inexplicably missing, a part of him that had, for whatever brief period of time this may be, disappeared. He grit his teeth furiously at these thoughts, reminding himself harshly of her death, the death that he himself had stood to witness. And after her death it had been he that had taken her out into the lake. It had been from his hold that her body had been released, the body of the beautiful young woman that had gracefully floated into the dark depths, drifting away from his sight as her hair, freed from it's bead, shrouded her face in a cloud or swirling, shinning strands. 

She was dead. She wasn't coming back.

Anguish enveloped him and he tore up the window in his pent-up emotion, crying out desperately to the night's sky.

"I never left you! I _never_ wanted to be apart! Why did you leave me? Why…?" His words were caught in his throat as he choked down the tears that threatened to spill. He hated this! Hated himself for appearing so weak. That wasn't the person he had made himself to be. It was a disconcerting thought, as if he was losing his carefully built up persona to that of someone he had long ago tried to hide away, the someone that others had tried so hard to bring out.

Tifa had 'helped' him to unlock the part of himself that he had hidden away and, at first, he had welcomed the change. But it was difficult to cast off past habits, and he struggled with this now, in his day to day life, fighting to stay consistently one person, but finding himself unwittingly drifting into what appeared to be, sometimes, two entirely different people. Originally, Tifa's careful treatment of him had faded away this seemingly split personality, making him a person that was slightly more expressive than he had been previously. But now, thanks to her unsettling departure, he was once again lost into troubled thoughts of self-loathing, making him often silent and cold towards others. 

Except there was a slight difference, now he was free to unashamedly love Aeris or rather, the memory he had of her, and this was changing him, making him almost irrational with his desperation to see her again, preserve the memories he had of her. 

On the outside he was dark, brooding, and unresponsive. A man that neither wanted nor needed human interaction, as if his heart were made of cold, impenetrable stone. 

But on the inside, he was screaming.


End file.
